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<title>Can't Remember to Forget You by rosewrites (melanoms)</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745789">Can't Remember to Forget You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/melanoms/pseuds/rosewrites'>rosewrites (melanoms)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst and Feels, Complicated Relationships, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:55:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29745789</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/melanoms/pseuds/rosewrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock laid your memory to rest when you walked out of his life. Well, he said ‘walked out’. You said ‘shoved’. The details weren’t important; at least not to him. But when you rose from the dead of his memory, he couldn’t live with not knowing the answers to so many unasked questions. If only he left well enough alone. He really should have known better.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sherlock Holmes/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Can't Remember to Forget You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don’t know how we ended up here because it’s a bit different than my usual. But I’m just relieved that I created anything in this dry spell I’ve been having. So here we are! Title is from a quote from the movie Memento--a personal favorite.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="">
  <p></p>
  <div class="">
    <p>Tightness of the chest. Increased heart rate. Tick of the jaw.</p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>Yes, it was back...the not knowing. How he dreaded the not knowing. </p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>Every observation Sherlock extracted from your presence only revealed how much he did not know. And while you were never easy to read, it did become simple...simpler. </p>
  </div>
  <div class="">
    <p>At least, so he thought. </p>
  </div>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Until he heard you were bartending down the road from Scotland Yard. Yes, <em>bartending</em>. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>After wasting months laying your memory to rest—at least in his mind. The outside world was incessant on reminding him that you were, in fact, not dead—he knew you would only last a few days in this weak attempt to satiate your own hunger for stimulation. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>This wouldn’t be enough for you, surely. It was a cry for help. And it was certainly a cry that someone else would answer.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But days melted into weeks and weeks evolved into months and you were still…</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p><em>Bartending</em>.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You were still <em>bartending</em>. If this occupation was enough to occupy you for such an extended amount of time, it only begged the question:</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>How much of you did he misremember?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Were you not as clever as he remembered? Ingenuitive? Curious? Not that he ever told you these things—and he certainly never would now.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But even as you lied naked in his bed with your back facing him, staring at the wall, he knew there was something he misremembered. You weren’t asleep and he knew it. And you knew that he knew.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Tightness of the chest. Increased heart rate. Tick of the jaw.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It was back...the not knowing.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Stop smelling me,” you requested, breaking his trance.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“No.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He knew better than to lie to you.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You twisted your torso to examine him through a scrutinizing gaze, sunlight barely kissing the side of your face as dawn dared to end your time together.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Well? Have you figured it all out?” you asked.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I won’t break the terms of our arrangement.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I doubt you will.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Doubt. You had never doubted him before. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You spent the night with him.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I spent the night with you.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sherlock rolled his eyes. John felt confident stating the obvious. You just did it to annoy him. And it worked. Every single time.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“He left you satisfied.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Jealous?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“No,” he deadpanned. Jealousy was trivial.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You want an explanation.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Yes, but I don’t want it from you.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You only want evidence of your own brilliance. It wouldn’t be a very good game if I gave you all the answers.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The answers. The answers. The answers. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The answers that vexed him in the moments before sleep and in those pockets of conversation when the stimulation grew weak. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Why were you bartending? Why did you start? And who—who, who, <em>who</em>—were you seeing? It was all interconnected. That was obvious. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But even as his hand ghosted over your side and your skin felt the same as he remembered—he could trust his memory when it came to the tactile, after all—you were not the same.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Someone changed you; bewitched you even. You weren’t like this. Not the version of you that he remembered. Or was it misremembered?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But regardless of the who and the why and even the how, Occam’s razor led him to the same conclusion.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>You were in love with someone else. And if that was the case, why were you here with him? And why did the ache of the not knowing not go away?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“It’s time for me to leave,” you whispered, imprinting the sensation of your lips upon his cheek.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“If he knows you’re with someone else…” Sherlock furrowed his brow. “Does he know it’s me?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“The famous detective with the ridiculous hat? You know better than to ask questions like that.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It’s true. He did. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The corner of your lip tugged in a smirk. And, for a brief moment, you felt like how he remembered you.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“You can have the answers to any mystery you’d like,” you hummed. “But you don’t need the boring details of my personal life.” </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Yes. That and you would no longer agree to see him if he figured it all out. You slid out of bed, looking over your shoulder to smile at him. </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Don’t get up yet. Unless you want your landlady questioning what possessed you. They’re more observant than you give them credit for.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And as you sat in the taxi on your journey to your flat, you commenced your cognitive ritual of wondering if you made a grave mistake partnering with James Moriarty.</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
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